


on keith & leading

by lovinglied



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: This is just a rant, but then it just turned into this, keith as a leader, no really like this started off as me trying to write a oneshot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-19
Updated: 2017-11-19
Packaged: 2019-02-04 09:14:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12767790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovinglied/pseuds/lovinglied
Summary: a rant about keith and how his leading arc is so telling of his character. i just love him a lot and want the best for him.





	on keith & leading

**Author's Note:**

> hi! i just needed a place to get my feelings out. i love keith a lot.

Keith was a sober companion; at once relentless in his honesty and tender in his regard for others. He had a soft inside, but not by means of rot or decomposition, but by nature and in virtue; to say he had a pit in his stomach would be a gross misconception, only aided in absurdity by his tendency to be blunt. He’s harsh without hitting home, and unrelenting without crossing lines. He leaves dents without punching walls. He’s a whirlwind confined to a boyish physique. With no light there to guide him throughout most of his life, he was left to make himself embody the qualities of his own northern star - a splendid cataclysmic miracle of nature, a compass for the lost - but it was done out of pure necessity, and just for him to get by. So his style of leading never abided to anyone else’s standards; his reassurances were constructed solely for himself. His methods were personalized to fit a boy who had to learn how to not be self destructive while constantly in harm's way. He’s brilliant by his own standards. He’s his own leader. And because of that, he’s survived. 

 

Shiro sees that in him because he knows him so well. But these qualities that he sees in Keith - his potential to be a leader - are handcrafted and so specific to Keith’s lifestyle and sense of self that it never quite aids to any group withstood peril; in fact, it only adds to it. 

 

Keith leads like he behaves: _bluntly, harshly and spontaneously_. This is how he’s survived. This is what works for him. Shiro sees this determination - this survival and self guiding instinct - and mistakes it for that of a leader. But Keith leads like he copes: _deprecatingly and barely_. His isolation has made him strong for the sake of himself. Keith needs to realize that that’s enough: his strength is not in his ability to lead others, but in his ability to lead himself.  

 

So Shiro constantly pushing this notion on Keith - the notion that he’s a leader, and that he has the qualities - is incredibly straining. Every time Keith fails to meet Shiro’s standards of a leader, and instead use the strategies that have worked for Keith his whole life - the things that make him his own leader - he finds himself failing, and by extension, letting Shiro down. And whenever he fails to lead like how Shiro would, he thinks less of himself. He doubts himself. It’s hurting him.  Keith is strong and takes initiative, but he’s not made to consider the lives of others. He’s not been built to compensate for other people. And that’s not his fault; that’s how he’s survived. It’s so hard to watch because Shiro’s not wrong. Keith IS a brilliant leader. But not for a team. 

 

He acts like the team is dead weight in a self serving course of action but only because he’s never had to care for others. And he leads like this because no one’s ever been there to care for him. Except Shiro. The person that he looks up to more than anyone else unfortunately doubles as the person who’s putting him in such a constricting situation. By insisting that Keith is a leader, he’s unraveling all of Keith’s efforts to remain intact, and undoing all his ways to deal with his self destructive tendencies. But Keith knows he can’t be the leader Shiro wants him to be  _ for others _ . Because Keith doesn’t want to blow up in peoples faces. He doesn’t want them to see how much hurt he goes through in order to survive. He doesn’t want that to hurt them, and he knows that if he leads this team, he won’t be able to guarantee their safety. Keith’s way of coping is unhealthy. Shiro shouldn’t make him have to use that as a resource to lead. It shouldn’t be something he’s encouraged to tap into when other people are on the line. 

 

Keith’s never had people to care about. He’s never had people who’s safety he’d have to consider. Because Keith doesn’t even consider his own safety in anything he does. He works himself to the core because that's the only thing that’s worked in his life. That’s been his constant. But now he has a team he’s being forced to lead and he’s at a loss, because he can’t manage to use what has worked for him this time. His means of survival as a leader won’t work for a team of people he cares about because his strategies and these leader qualities that he uses to guide himself have never factored in _caring_. They’re built to implode and yield consequences because that’s how Keith works. That’s how Keith leads. That’s how Keith survives. 

 

So it’s scary that he left. That he’s with the BOM. Because now that Shiro has made him doubt his methods of leading, it’s very possible that he now doubts his way of leading himself. He now plays right into his self destructive tendencies, and he’s especially at risk because now he’s surrounded by people that encourage that. He’s surrounded by people that tell him his risk isn't vulnerability, but valuable. That tell him that his risk is important in a team. And this scary view on morality could've been what pushed him over the edge. That validation - something he’s rarely gotten in his life - that validation that his own self destruction is valuable in a team like the BOM - that and him not knowing how to deal with the fact that he has loved ones on the line, that he cares for team voltron - could very well have welcomed his attempt at self sacrifice at the end of season 4. _He would’ve protected everyone. He would’ve saved everyone. He would’ve be the leader Shiro wants him to be._

 

So let's stop doing Keith dirty, shall we Dreamworks? He's trying his best.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> thank u for reading!!! i have no idea what prompted that whole rant lol. 
> 
> twitter: thepaiadin   
> tumblr: vlegendaryd
> 
> xx


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